As the Harvest Moons
by Rhianwen
Summary: Elli had never seen a soap opera before, and had no particular desire to change that. But when she woke up in a world gone mad, she knew she would have to learn quickly.
1. Chapter 1

As the Harvest Moons

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Summary: Elli had never seen a soap opera before, and had no particular desire to change that. But when she woke up in a world gone mad, she knew she would have to learn quickly.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

In the beginning, there was the Soap.

Unfortunately, Elli dropped it in the bath, and thanks to all the bubbles, couldn't find it again.

However, as the doctor was right there, and very willing to help her search by groping around in the warm, bubbly water, the crisis was swiftly averted.

But this is not the story of the Soap, but rather of the Soap Opera.

"But Karen," Elli said drowsily, fighting off the cold-medication-induced urge to just go back to sleep, "who would write an opera about soap?"

Karen stopped short in the act of hooking up the little TV perched on the stand at the foot of her friend's bed.

"Look, just watch a few episodes, okay? It's not about soap, Elli," she hastened to explain. "It's about melodrama, and a lot of pretty people with ridiculous personalities, combined with extremely contrived and increasingly unlikley plot twists, which include, but are not limited to, evil twins, amnesia, resurrection, and of course, the old stand-by, The Coma. Oh, yeah; and everyone is sleeping with everyone else, so don't get too attached to a couple."

Elli blinked.

"Um..."

"It's better than it sounds."

"It would have to be," Elli commented, shaking her head despairingly. "Can't I just take some more pills and pass out again?"

"Don't worry," Karen laughed. "These hardly engage your brain at all. It'll be like you're passed out, even though you're awake. So your mind will _think_ it's passed out, because if it tries to apply logic, it will explode!"

Elli blinked some more.

"Why do _you_ like these again?"

"They make sense when you're drunk," Karen shrugged. "Whatever keeps me from lookin' for work. Now, I'll leave you with our spare TV, and the past three seasons of As the Days of Beautiful Passion Turn Into Another World – Mom and I have been taping it forever."

"That's a really unwieldy title," Elli said sadly.

"Yeah, I know. We have an easier name."

"What's that? AtDoBPTIAW?"

"No," Karen scoffed kindly, fluffing up Elli's pillow and sliding it behind her again. "That's silly! We call it Our Show. Well, enjoy!"

"Okay," Elli called after with a weak little wave, before turning her attention reluctantly to the screen. "I really hope Karen was exaggerating..."

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Four hours later had mercilessly crushed that hope.

"Turn it off," Elli whimpered, trying to spur herself into action. "You can do it, Elli! You are strong! You are woman! Roar! Oh, it's no use," she concluded sadly, collapsing in a little nightgown-clad heap a few inches from the head of the bed. "Meow..."

"Elli?" a kind, slightly worried voice called from the door. "Are you okay in there?" He smiled and shook his head at the sight of his little nurse and house-mate curled up in the middle of the bed and snuggling a pillow, clearly asleep. "Well, at least she's getting some sleep."

--------------------------------------------------------------------

"You've got a lot of nerve, coming back here, after what you did."

Elli stared confusedly up at the kindly old lady in the wheelchair, somehow managing to glare down at her. This, she surmised, had something to do with waking up on the floor of Grandma's house.

"Grandma?" she began, sitting up dizzily. "Why am I here?"

"That's what I'd like to know," Ellen spat, gesturing dramatically, "after what you did."

Elli shuffled back nervously, out of range of the old lady's cane, and then, with some difficulty, managed to stand.

"What did I do, Grandma?"

Ellen glared viciously from beneath her frilly cap.

"You've got some nerve, calling me that, after wh—"

"Yes, I know, what I did," Elli hastened to finish. "Whatever that was."

A tiny gasp drew both women's attention to the doorway.

"What is _she_ doing here?" little Stu Greene demanded, glaring daggers at his older sister. "Doesn't she know what she did?"

Elli perked up, seeing her chance.

"Now, that you mention it, actually, I don't."

Ellen and Stu looked at each other dramatically.

"Do you think she really doesn't know, Grandma?" Stu asked in a low, intense whisper.

Ellen ran one wrinkled, lined hand through Stu's smooth dark hair.

"I don't know, child. I have seen cases like this, rare cases, in which a poor, pitiful wretch like this becomes so tormented with guilt that her mind blocks out her own heinous act, along with everything else."

"But she could be faking it," Stu suggested, watching his sister suspiciously.

"It's true," Ellen agreed. "Anyone who had done what she has done might try to get out of their punishment. There's only one man in this town who can tell us if her amnesia is real or feigned."

Stu's eyes lit up.

"We'll take her to see the doctor!"

"Finally," Elli breathed fervently. "The doctor's always logical and cool-headed. Maybe he can tell me what's going on."

------------------------------------------------------------------

"What in God's name is going on here?" Dr. Tim Trent demanded, bolting from his desk, eyes narrowed, raking one hand through his hair and leaving it wild and disarrayed, as the siblings entered his office. "Why have you brought her here, to me, after what she's done?"

"Well, there goes that idea," Elli sighed sadly.

"Doctor, we think Elli is suffering from amnesia!" Stu spoke up.

"Amnesia!" the doctor repeated, alarmed. "Stu, it's time for you to go home. This...this place of death is no place for a child. I'll see to your sister."

"Take care of her, Doctor," Stu implored. "She's still my sister, even after all she's done."

Elli crossed her arms impatiently as the little boy hurried from the Clinic.

"I suppose it would kill any of you to be specific," she groused.

The doctor fixed her with a piercing gaze.

"It's easy for someone who has no idea what you've done to talk about it as if it's an everyday thing," he said heavily, leading her into his office and settling her on the cot. "But we _know_."

She gritted her teeth, and forced a pleasant smile.

"I wish I could say the same, then."

"Alright. I'm going to administer the amnesia test," he announced dramatically, dropping to one knee before her. "Think carefully before you answer. What is your name?"

"Elli," she replied hesitantly.

This, apparently, was not quite the answer he had been hoping to hear, for his eyes widened, and he flung himself from her.

"It's feigned! How could you play so cruelly with a tragedy like--"

"Did I say Elli?" that same young lady asked with a self-deprecating grin. "Because I meant Bertha."

The doctor stopped dead in his furious pacing, and stared at her, crestfallen.

"She doesn't know," he murmured, head in his hand. "It's amnesia, alright."

_Wow_, Elli noted silently. _I don't remember the doctor being this stupid yesterday._

"I would know if you were lying," he continued, dropping to the cot beside her and leaning forward until their faces were nearly brushing, "for I have psychic powers."

_Wasn't this flaky yesterday, either._

"Why, God?" he howled, so abruptly that she jumped, missed the cot, and toppled to the floor. "Why have you taken her from me? It wasn't enough to lose her to what she's done, now I've lose her to her own guilt and torment! HOW MANY TIMES MUST I LOSE HER!"

"If you're psychic, wouldn't you know that?" Elli muttered.

He stopped again, and stared.

"Do you know what it's like to live with so great a power? I can't use it irresponsibly, or the whole world would be threatened! But perhaps, if I had used it in time, this could have been prevented. If I had but known what she was going to do, I could have found her...talked to her...stopped her."

His last statement was quiet, with plenty of dramatic gesturing and stage direction.

"And now, here she is. Her body, her face, is that of the woman I loved. But the essence, the soul, the woman herself, is long gone, buried beneath what she did!"

"What did she do!" Elli demanded, voice growing slightly shrill.

"She..." He stopped. "She...I can't even say it."

"Grrgh!" said Elli pleasantly. "Maybe you can show me through interpretive dance, or draw me a picture, or act it out, or something!"

He glared yet again.

"Do you think this is the sort of thing a man can just talk about? Here you sit, before me, close enough to touch, to hold, to nibble gently long into the night, and yet so far away. Why does God continue to torment me? After all I've gone through in my life...all starting with the death of my pet bunny, Snuggles, when I was three. That was the tragic day that made me decide to go into medicine. I swore on the grave of Snuggles that I would never lose another bunny. It was about this time that bunnies went extinct. If only I had been able to save Snuggles...it might not have been so."

"You had a pet bunny named Snuggles?" Elli exclaimed delightedly. "That's cute!"

"And then, when I was six, my father died. I couldn't save him. I wasn't old enough to get into medical school. They sent me back to recess. And I swore that someday, I would get out of that playground and save lives! And then my mother died when I was ten. I was sent to live with my grandmother. She was old, and deaf, and died three months later. The orphanage was not so nurturing of my aspirations of medical school. But it didn't really matter, because it burnt to the grown the next day. I found work eventually, in a factory run by a sick, sadistic foreman, and from there it was a long and arduous process to earn the money needed for years and years of schooling.

"But I did it. And then I met you. And we fell in love. Desperately, immediately, wonderfully in love. And all was finally going right. And then, a mere three years later, the mere blink of an eye, you..." He hesitated. "You..."

"I...?"

"You..."

She watched in growing concern as his face contorted with the effort to spit out the words. Any more of this, and he was going to burst something.

"Can I make you some tea?" she asked timidly.

He turned sharply.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you? To poison me. Kill me, as you killed my spirit."

"Um, actually, I just thought some tea might help you relax," she admitted.

He blinked.

"Oh. Tea sounds nice. Let's go."

She watched, head swimming with confusion, as he swept dramatically upstairs.

"Oww..."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

--------------------------------------------------------------------

"This tea...it's very good," the doctor said dramatically about fifteen minutes later. "Almost good enough to ease the pain of what you did."

"What did I do?!" Elli demanded in something just a breath away from a sob, flopping face down on the table in despair.

Dr. Trent took her hand and squeezed it.

"The world is not ready."

The little brunette peeled herself from the tabletop and frowned.

"But I thought I already did it."

"But to relive it...unthinkable."

"Of course," she sighed. "Is there a newspaper from that day, or something?"

He stared at her, aghast.

"No, Elli. What you did...it was so unspeakable that even the journalists would not touch it."

"What can I get from some kids on the internet?" she grumbled.

He laughed a bitter laugh.

"Elli, try finding internet service in _this_ town. I know," he added, "for I have tried. In the internet lay my last hope of retrieving you from the madness that led you to do--"

"I'm going to see Manna," Elli announced flatly, rising abruptly from her chair and storming from the Clinic's little kitchenette, although not before rinsing their cups and saucers at the sink. "If she won't tell me, no one will."

---------------------------------------------------

"I have nothing to say to you," Manna spat loathingly approximately fifteen minutes later amid dramatic gestures, "after what you did."

"Darnit! Darnit, darnit, darnit!" Elli wailed, tantrumming happily about Duke and Manna's tiny kitchen located just off the Winery's main room.

"What's all the noise about in here?" a deep, booming voice demanded dramatically from the doorway.

"Duke!" Manna cried, running dramatically to her husband.

"Manna!" he responded in like, catching her easily in his arms and kissing her tenderly.

"Oh, Duke…"

"Oh, Manna…"

"Oh, brother," Elli huffed.

Duke looked up abruptly at this interruption, and gasped sharply as his eyes lit on the girl trying desperately to tunnel through the wall, lest a bit of harmlessly saccharine romance turn into something spicier.

"Elli! Beautiful, cold-blooded little Elli Greene!"

"Can you believe the nerve of the creature, coming here after what she did?" Manna demanded, hand clasped tightly at her husband's shoulder, completely oblivious that the aforementioned creature had wearily quoted the latter part of her question along with her.

"I want to go back home, where people are smart," Elli whimpered sadly. Then, as the couple caught her eye and morphed within her mind's eye to the versions of Duke and Manna that she was more familiar with, incessantly bickering, and either heavily drinking or gossiping, respectively. "Okay, maybe not these two specifically…"

"Let's keep an open mind, Manna," Duke entreated. "Even a wretch such as this deserves a voice. For without a chance for every inexplicable villain to explain and defend her actions and motives, I fear that we will quickly go the way of bad fanfiction, and turn into cardboard cutouts."

For a moment, Manna's expression registered horror. Then, with a broken sob, she buried her face in her hands.

"You only say that because the stars in your eyes at her youth and vigor clouds your vision! Don't deny it, Dukalous!"

"Dukalous?" Elli repeated, snickering. "I think his mother was hitting the bottle the night he was born…"

"I know," Manna was meanwhile continuing in a fierce whisper, gripping Duke firmly by the lapels and dragging him closer. "I know how you yearn for her: her sweet, girlish voice, her flawless curves as yet oblivious to the notion of gravity, and her soft touch unmarred by years of hard work."

"Because naturally, working at the Clinic, raising Stu, and acting as Grandma's personal physical therapist have all been a cake-walk," Elli noted aside pleasantly.

"If you want her, Duke, if you want such a creature, someone who could do what she has done and pretend innocence, then go. And may God have mercy on you, for she will not. Once you cease to be useful—"

"I'm seeing a problem with this logic," Elli broke in, only to be completely ignored yet again.

"—you will be her next victim, and God knows, I will not be the one to mourn you."

Elli raised one hand in objection.

"Um, you _do_ remember that I'm five years younger than your daughter, right?"

A deathly silence fell over the kitchen. Manna and Duke swooped around simultaneously to stare dramatically at the girl.

"Never speak her name in our presence again," Duke spat.

"I didn't!" Elli protested. "I said _your daughter_, not _Aja_."

"Get out!" Manna thundered, springing forward and grabbing a lock of silky brown hair.

"Ow! Owowowowow! Okay, I'm going!" Elli yelped as she was thus dragged from the kitchen, across the main room, and flung out the door.

"I'm…sorry you had to go through that, Manna," she faintly heard Duke murmuring to his wife as she gathered herself up off the doorstep.

"Oh, Duke," Manna whispered brokenly into his shirtfront.

"Oh, Manna…"

"Oh, for crying out loud!" Elli whimpered sadly.

She flopped, cross-legged, to the sun-baked stone of the street in front of the Winery, and pondered her situation.

"Okay, let's see. Who do I know who has a rational mind, and knows how to keep a cool head at all times? Who loves gossip? Who lives for scandal? Or, barring that, who got me into this mess in the first place?"

She took a moment to mull this over. Then she leapt up with a joyous yelp.

"Karen! She's my best friend, and _nothing_ shocks _her_. Not to mention, the soap opera thing was her idea in the first place."

---------------------------------------------------------------

Ten minutes later saw a young lady staring in utter shock at the befrilled little nurse in the doorway.

"Elli!" Karen finally gasped dramatically. "You're back!"

"Oh! So, I've been gone?" Elli asked hopefully. "That's a good start, actually."

Karen sighed.

"I don't know how you can be so chipper about everything, after what you've done."

"Gragh! What?! What did I do?!"

Karen grasped her shoulders tightly and gazed intensely into her eyes.

"Elli! You know that I love you like a sister. You're the one who nursed and guided me through the harrowing discovery that my boyfriend and his sister are madly in love with the same man. I would happily accept the love of either Rick or Popuri - or both at once, because whoo-ha - but that selfish bastard insists upon hording the whole family's love for himself, pitting siblings against each other for his own sick amusement. I would treat them like a king and a queen, where Kai seeks only to spread misery and discontent. It rips at my very soul, just thinking about it." She pressed her hand dramatically over her heart, and heaved a long sigh. Then she looked up, expression softening. "But you were there throughout the whole thing, providing comfort and ice cream and liquor and consolation sex, and nothing you could do will ever take away the love between sisters. But you cannot ask me to speak of what you did."

"But, um, I have amnesia," Elli, who had just recalled this fact herself, said importantly. "By the way, it's Bertha, not Elli."

"My God," Karen groaned despairingly. "It's definitely amnesia. The last time I had amnesia, I went around telling people my name was Steve."

"Now, that sounds more like gender confusion to me," Elli said thoughtfully.

"Mother!" Karen was meanwhile shouting through the doorway leading from the main room of the Supermarket to the family's living quarters. "Mother, we have a crisis!"

The sound of thundering footsteps filled the air, growing rapidly nearer.

"Your father is having an affair with Carter again, isn't he?" Sasha roared as she burst into the store. "Or is it Lillia this time? That manipulative, conniving monster! Pretending to be frail and helpless, while secretly plotting to ruin the marriages of others! First Manna and Duke, then Basil and Anna, and now Jeff and me!"

Karen gave a huff of annoyance.

"No, Mom, it's Elli."

Sasha froze, then turned slowly toward her daughter's pal, her expression growing even more livid.

"You little hussy! You're learning young, aren't you?" she hissed, swooping down on the terrified little brunette. "I was so happy for you, that yours was the one union that Lillia had not managed to destroy, for no matter how cleverly she tried to charm him, the doctor remained ever faithful to you. When the whole time, you were unfaithful to him! With MY husband!" She gave Elli a fierce shake. "GIVE ME BACK THE LOVE OF MY HUSBAND!!!!!"

"Mom!" Karen barked. "Elli's not sleeping with Dad! Seriously, ew. She's got amnesia!"

All at once, Sasha's expression softened exponentially, and her hold on Elli went from a death grip to a soothing hug.

"You poor thing," she crooned. "Probably all the guilt and torment heaped on you by an oppressive society over that little thing you did."

Elli perked up in Sasha's arms.

"You know what it was?"

"I don't recall the details," Sasha shrugged indifferently. "Only that everyone in town was getting awfully bent out of shape about it." She made a noise of disdain. "The shouting, the angry mobs, the pitchforks, the flaming arrows…Honestly, when will people understand that we women, we goddesses, work by our own moral code, and it is not their place as lowly males to judge?"

Elli, who had been rapidly inflating with hope that perhaps this was all just a misunderstanding, deflated at twice the rate.

"R-right." She forced a smile. "Look, if it's okay with you, this goddess is going to go look for someone who knows what she did, and might be willing to talk about it."

------------------------------------------------------------

"Yes, Elli, search," the dark figure lurking in the vegetable seeds cackled evilly as the dejected little brunette slunk sadly away. "Search for the truth. Search, and grow mad as you come to realize just the enormity of what you have done."

With that, unable to suppress its glee any longer, the figure threw back its cloaked head and let loose a dramatically evil laugh.

"Hey, didn't you see the sign?" demanded Karen, arms crossed in a pose of annoyance identical to that of Sasha. "We're closed today. Take off."

"Alright, alright," the cloaked figure grumbled, stomping towards the door. "Way to kill a shadowy enigma's sense of drama, ladies."

--------------------------------------------------------------

End Notes: Ummm, yeah. I'm nowhere as embarrassed for this one as I should be. XD


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

--------------------------------------------------------- 

While Karen and Sasha were busily evicting a shadowy enigma from the Supermarket, Elli trudged grimly down the main street of Mineral Town.

"Well, now what?" she demanded plaintively of No One In Particular. "Grandma is crazy, Stu is crazy, the doctor is crazy, Duke and Manna are crazy, and Karen is crazy! What I need is someone who hasn't lived here long enough to be caught up in all this small-town hysteria."

As she pondered this issue carefully, Elli found herself wandering through Rose Square – thankfully deserted, as she had yet to work up the necessary courage to face another of her friendly fellow Mineral Townies.

On a whim, she turned off at the beach, possessed of a powerful craving for the warm sand and salt tang of the sea air. Ever since her childhood, sitting at the edge of the dock and watching the ocean had always seemed to clear her head.

Presumably, it would help this time too, providing the ocean hadn't run away with the grass, leaving the sky broken-hearted and ranting like a lunatic.

Thus deciding, she hopped lightly down the bright white cement steps leading down to the beach.

"Hmm…where am I going to find a couple of city folk who haven't been here very long, and haven't succumbed to the gossip and mob mentality of small-town life?"

"Hey, Elli, how's it going?" Kai called as she ambled across the sun-warmed sand, deep in thought.

"Oh, hi, Kai," Elli called back cheerfully. "How was your year in the city, away from all the gossip and mob mentality of small town life?"

"Not bad," he replied easily, stretching and readjusting his position on the bench outside the Seaside Snack Shack. "Had a lot of fun, met a lot of people, made a little money..."

"Sounds good," Elli giggled. Then she grew sober. "I'd really like to chat more, but I'm having a very strange day, and I need to find someone who hasn't been here long enough to go crazy. I'll come back this weekend for a snowcone and catch up, okay?"

"Why, what's going on?" Kai asked with a concerned frown.

"Well, everyone in town went simultaneously insane today," Elli pouted.

Kai laughed.

"Yeah, I know what you mean! I just got into town this morning, and I barely had time to unpack before Karen showed up, ranting and raving about me stealing her boyfriend and her boyfriend's sister."

Elli, who had been listening to this brief tale with bated breath, eyes growing wide and starry with the hope that she might have found her Rational City Folk at last, gathered up her skirts and sprinted across the beach toward the bandana-topped young man.

"Karen told me about that! Kai, do you mean that you don't know what she's talking about, either?"

Kai grinned.

"Oh, I know what she's talking about. Rick's not the type you can love and leave. Something about that porcelain visage, and that elegantly lanky physique makes me yearn." Here, he trailed off, gazing dramatically into the distance, eyes dreamy. Then, apparently recalling that he wasn't alone, he seemed to shake himself off. "And his baby sister! No way any red-blooded male's gonna forget about Popuri. Those pink silken tresses…those big blood-red eyes…that ear-piercing voice…that propensity for wearing corsets outside her clothes…"

"_I'd_ kind of like to forget about this whole conversation," Elli grumbled, shrewish with the fiery wreckage of her hopes for the third time in the past forty-five minutes.

Kai sighed, resting one hand on her shoulder, and completely flattening one of her frills, much to her annoyance.

"Look, Elli, I understand that Karen's your friend and all, and you want to side with her out of sisterhood solidarity or something like that – and hey, I fully encourage you to give her more comfort sex, because that footage is gonna sell for a fortune! – but I have to follow my heart."

Elli rolled her eyes.

"I'm sure it's something in that area you're following."

He glared.

"Hey! Just because you don't understand the pure, untainted love between a man and a woman and her older brother, doesn't give you the right to pass judgment on my lifestyle choices!"

"Right," Elli agreed wearily. "Look, I think I'm just going to go. I've had a really weird day, and—"

"Kai!"

Both looked up abruptly at this cry, and an ecstatic light of joy washed over Kai's face at the mass of brown, green, and wire-rimmed glasses sprinting towards them.

"Rick!"

"Oh, Kai!"

Kai caught the lanky young fellow in his arms and swung him around.

"Oh, Rick!"

"Oh, Kai…"

"Oh, Rick…"

"Oh, not again!" Elli whined as the boys settled into hair-stroking and gentle kisses.

His attention drawn to their small audience by its noises of protest, Rick's eyes widened.

"Elli! What—what are you doing back?!"

"Back?" Kai echoed. "What, did the doctor finally take you on that trip to the city?"

"N-no," Elli admitted hesitantly.

Rick stared wonderingly at – Elli choked slightly over the thought (somehow) – his lover.

"Kai? You really don't know what she did?"

Kai's dark eyes leapt rapidly from Rick to Elli and back again.

"Uh, no, not really."

"Wow, that makes two of us!" Elli chirped with an enthusiastic cheerfulness so forced it sounded vaguely like an elephant being pushed through a knothole.

Rick rested one hand tenderly on her shoulder. Elli lamented briefly for the fate of her other frill.

"Elli. You are my dearest childhood friend's dearest childhood friend, and after everything you've done for Karen, you will always have a special place in my heart. But whatever my feelings, you've come too far to go back. After what you did—"

"What did she do?!" Kai and Elli demanded in unison.

Rick pressed one hand dramatically to his heart.

"I can't speak of it here, Kai, even to you. Let's go somewhere more private."

"Can I come, too?" Elli chirped excitedly.

Kai's expression was the picture of disbelief.

"Rick! What happened to you while I was gone? One second, you're talking about the horrible atrocities that your old schoolyard chum committed, and the next, you're trying to drag me off for sex? And you, Elli!" he continued, wheeling to glare at her. "How do you think the doctor would feel if he could hear you, trying to wriggle your way into bed with us?"

"Uh, Kai?" Rick interjected delicately. "I just meant we should go somewhere else to talk."

Kai's face fell.

"Oh." He flashed his boyfriend a hopeful grin. "Well, how about after?"

Rick, blushing prettily, looked down to hide a shy smile, scuffing the toe of his sneaker against the sand.

"Well, yeah, of course, _after_."

Elli watched as the two scampered off, either to discuss or to vigorously _after_ one another's proverbial brains out, and then sighed sadly.

"This would be really hot, if it weren't so creepy."

Then, as the sensation that she was being watched grew overwhelming, she turned slowly, in time with the sinking of her heart.

"Oh...hi, Zack," she greeted with her previous elephant-through-knothole cheerfulness as the towel-wearing man's glare grew deeper and darker, and he prepared to lunge.

"Wretched she-demon!" he bellowed as he sailed majestically towards her.

"Ack!" Elli shrieked miserably, scrambling backwards and promptly tripping over her skirt.

He advanced menacingly on the girl crawling rapidly away.

"Why have you returned to upset the recently restored peace of our peaceful town?! After what you did, I didn't think you'd ever show your face around here again!"

"But I live here!"

"What nerve!" Zack laughed in disbelief. "What gall! What spleen! YOU HAVE NO HOME HERE!"

With this last, decidedly capslocked statement, he lunged once again, dragging her from the sand by the front of her apron and shaking her roughly.

Watching curiously as her life flashed before her eyes, and reflecting sadly that the montage of days at the Clinic and evenings babysitting really didn't amount to much in the way of thrilling and sexy adventures, Elli thought fast.

And then, a little light bulb flashed into being above her head, combining with the wild jostling moment of being shaken to death to provide something resembling a poor man's laser light show.

"Unhand me," she ordered sternly, all the experience of the Strangest Day of Her Life backing her up, "or I'll tell Lillia about the others!"

Zack froze mid-shake.

"You wouldn't!" he hissed.

"Oh, really? Even after I…well, whatever the heck I did?"

His eyes narrowed.

"Fiendish female!" he bellowed, hands tightening at her collar.

A tense moment followed, during which Elli's montage played double-time, shortening into clips of babysitting the doctor just to cut out unnecessary seconds.

Finally, Zack's grip loosened, and she dropped harmlessly to the sand.

"Thank-you," she said coolly, straightening out her dress and smoothing her hair back into place.

"Don't mention it," he growled. "And if I find out you breathed so much as a word to Lillia about Won, Greg, Manna, and Louis—"

"Somehow, it's always worse than I think," Elli noted curiously.

"—I'll find you, and I'll finish the job."

"And I'll burn in Hell, blah-blah-blah, what I did, I know," she sighed, making an unenthusiastic gesture. "Look, I have to go. I was hoping that someone here could tell me what was going on, but Kai killed that hope."

Zack, however, no longer had a thought to spare for Elli or her burning questions, for Won had just emerged from the little hut, grinning sexily, and was now in the process of being thrown to the sand and kissed passionately.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Won protested.

Zack, peering quizzically at him, pulled back.

The smaller man shrugged out of his long yellow coat, revealing an almost absurdly muscular physique, of which there had previously been no hint.

"Okay, go ahead," he invited, scooting back under Zack again. "I just have my apples in there, and I can't let everyone who wants a piece of this action damage the merchandise."

"I'm _just anyone_ now, am I?" Zack growled into the inexplicably rugged jaw line that had appeared once Won's hat and sunglasses had been likewise discarded.

And so, after a quick glance around to be sure that there were no more lingering females with dark pasts to bear witness to their passion, Won grinned again, flipped Zack to the sand, and proceeded to show him, every way that his vast experience knew how, that he was not, in any way, just anyone.

---------------------------------------------------------

"Okay," Elli was meanwhile muttering, hurrying down the paths of Mineral Town, shrinking back into herself as this or that citizen would catch sight of her and deliver a vicious glare. "Let's take an inventory of everyone in town. Manna is weepy and possessive, with occasional bouts of hair-pulling; Sasha is a psychotically violent feminist, Karen is...having problems with her love life, the doctor likes bunnies and dramatic poses, Kai and Rick are aftering each other, and everyone else just talks too much." She sighed. "Great."

She gave a terrified little shriek as Saibara shook an axe menacingly at her as she passed the forge.

"There's only one more person I can even hope to count on," she lamented, all but sprinting toward the sign to Starbright Farm. "I just hope Claire's at home."

The little brunette gave a great sigh of relief as she passed the sign, valiantly resisting the urge to claim sanctuary.

Then, as the fields caught her eye, once healthy crops choked out with weeds, cows wandering aimlessly to and fro, their mournful moos imploring a little love and affection from any who would listen, chickens all but crowded out of the coop by days and days of uncollected eggs, she threw her hands up.

"Well, this is just great! My REALLY last hope, and she's nowhere to be found!"

Still, as long as she was here, she might as well check, just to be sure. After all, even though Claire wasn't here to help her make Mineral Town sane again, at least no one_else_ was here, either, which definitely made it preferable to anywhere else right now.

And so, Elli set to work. She checked the barn. She checked the henhouse. She checked the stable, the tool shed, and the farmhouse.

Finally, dejected and discouraged (although, grasping protectively a certain favourite book that Claire had borrowed some weeks ago and neglected to return), she wandered back to the neglected fields.

"Okay, Elli, just think," she ordered herself. "It can't be _that_ hard to figure out what you did. After all, there are only so many things you_could_ do, physically. I'm pretty sure we can discount anything involving throwing buses or trucks at people, and I'm guessing I didn't beat up Gotz. I just hope I didn't kick a puppy, or something like that," she concluded worriedly.

One hand to her forehead in a gesture of deep thought, she began to pace, back and forth, through the waist-high grasses of Claire's fields.

"What I did, what I did, what I did..."

Another track of flattened grass as she changed directions to approach a wandering cow and deliver a gentle, reassuring pat.

"Moo," the cow said plaintively.

"I know, Bessie, I'm having one of those days too," she sighed, nuzzling the animal, and pulling back with a startled yelp when Bessie's hard, flat molars caught her hand. "Darnit, Bessie, you used to like me!" Her indignant expression crumpled into despondence. "Oh, even the animals hate me! What the heck did I do?!"

Suddenly possessed of a wicked inspiration, Elli scrambled around Bessie, and turned an angry, defiant face at the skies.

"Okay, if someone doesn't tell me what I did _right now_, I'm going to kick this cow!"

No response.

"I will!"

No response.

"Don't think I'm afraid to do it!"

No response.

"I swear, I'll kick it!"

Again, no response.

"And I'm wearing my pointy boots!"

When the hoped-for response still proved not forthcoming, Elli set her jaw determinedly, pulled back, and prepared to release upon poor, unknowing, and thoroughly confused Bessie.

"Elli!"

At this urgent shout from the lane leading into the farmyard, Elli gave another startled yelp, and utterly missed the distinctly massive target that Bessie's backside provided.

"That's just great," she grumbled, hauling herself out of the damp grasses, until two strong hands closed around her upper arms and did the rest of the hauling for her. She blinked. "Um, Duke?"

"What are you doing here, Elli?" he demanded in a low, intense tone, and much to her discomfort, without loosening his grip.

"Um, well, I was just coming to find Claire, and--"

"Elli, please!" he interrupted, pulling briefly away with a wince. "I—I do not want to think the worst of you. But after what you did, to return here? Of all places, Elli, why?"

"W-well, I guess it's because all the animals help me think."

He laughed gently.

"Oh, Elli, you always did have a way with animals."

"Tell that to Bessie," she grumbled, rubbing her sore hand.

Meanwhile, he was cupping her chin tenderly.

"I just want you to know, whatever you've done--"

"I don't suppose you have specifics, do you?"

"--or whatever you plan to do, my feelings will not change."

She squirmed slightly in his arms.

"Um, thanks?"

"Oh, Elli," he murmured softly into her hair, and after a few seconds, when she remained silent, pulled back and watched her expectantly.

"Oh...Duke?" she guessed.

"Oh, Elli," he sighed again, his hold on her tightening and securing in her mind the certainty that she would spend at _least_ a decade in therapy for this.

She nodded thoughtfully.

"Oh." Then, as his hand drifted down to her backside, she shoved angrily away. "Duke!"

-----------------------------------------------------------

End Notes: Hee! Yup, this one's still alive. I might have to do a bit more research, in the form of hours and hours of mindless television, watched while wearing a bathrobe and ingesting large amounts of ice cream, but those are just the trials you've gotta be willing to go through in the name of creativity! Or...whatever the heck it is I'm doing. XD


End file.
